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Thanks for stopping by for Day 3 of Upworthy's 31 Days of Happiness Countdown! If this is your first visit, here's the gist: Each day between Dec. 1 and Dec. 31, we're sharing stories we hope will bring joy, smiles, and laughter into our lives and yours. It's been a challenging year for a lot of us, so why not end it on a high note with a bit of happiness? Check back tomorrow (or click the links at the bottom) for another installment!

The holiday season is all about adding a little bit of cheer to our otherwise routine lives — something that's easy to do when you're surrounded by sparkling lights and a blanket of snow.

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Lia Darjes, a Berlin-based photographer, admits she went into her latest photo project with one wrong impression.

Can you truly be at peace identifying as both Muslim and LGBTQ? She wasn't so sure.

"At the point when I started working on this project, I myself did not think that there are queer Muslims who manage to reconcile those two parts of their identities," she says.

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Photographer Mehmet Genç travels the world snapping pictures of all the interesting people he meets. But it's not always an easy job.

Genç and one of his subjects. All photos by Mehmet Genç used with permission.

"If you go to remote place, usually people there are not relaxed when taking photo of them," he said in an email. He asks his subjects to smile, to loosen up, but often they won't, at least not right away. It takes time to earn their trust and build comfort with them, he says.

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It's 2016. Isn't it time you let mushrooms into your heart?

Fungi (think mushrooms, lichens, and slime molds) are actually really fun, guys.

Dad jokes aside, mushrooms and other fungi are diverse, colorful, textured, and just plain strange. Their beauty is remarkable and unexpected, challenging every notion about what fungi should be. I wanted to know more about these organisms, so I went straight to the source: fungi fanatic Stephen Axford.

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